


A Romance of the Future

by orphan_account



Category: None - Fandom
Genre: Purple Prose, Steampunk
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-10
Updated: 2020-05-20
Packaged: 2021-02-26 17:15:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 14,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23568811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account





	1. Childhood

In resolving to tread such a slippery and  
snare-fraught path, as autobiography, my inclination surrenders to duty. Providence  
having made me president of this small star  
in His boundless domains, — an office so insignificant in His eyes, but yet so important to the  
shortsighted retina of little man, — it is meet  
I should bequeath the great constituency of  
posterity my autobiographic testament.

I, Diogenes Milton, was bom in the year of  
Our Lord, July 4th, 2776. Of my lineage, it  
is enough that it can be traced to our common  
parentless parents, in the first year of the world.  
Of the hundreds of links between them and  
me, and of the millions of the opposing sexes whoso lots were interwoven ere my thread of  
vitality was spun, it is well that their names  
are shrouded in oblivion, for there is not a man  
but, by tracing his pedigree into the dark, pre-  
millennial ages, would find, in the history of his  
forefathers, the stains of every criminality ; and that, for one of whom he  
would have cause to rejoice, there would be  
a hundred for whom he would have reason  
to weep. Of my father himself, I can well  
say that his humanity was his greatness. A  
naturalist, moulded by the truest genius and  
the soundest education, his works alone betray  
his worth. My mother, whose wisdom first  
directed my steps towards good, was the  
daughter of Parry Franklin, the ex-Governor  
of Greenland.

My early years were spent without any  
record-worthy incident. My growth in body  
and mind, and my physical and mental edu-  
cation, were unchequered by any peculiarity.  
Plato rejoiced that he lived in the same age  
as Socrates. I have had equal cause to be  
grateful I belong to the present age. My  
ambition would have pined under that  
unpalatable educational system of the past by which the book of nature was eschewed in favour of a barren desert of idioms, syntax,  
languages, and a stunted philosophy, and by  
which pupils were rendered importers of lore  
iand not exporters of wisdom. The eye of  
progress must view with glowing delight the  
many brilliant leaves over which history has  
since turned, and the sight of education from  
a shallow, turbid ditch, broadening and deepening into such a wide and majestic river.  
Learning now forms its own appetite. Boys  
now enjoy the school more than in days of  
yore they enjoyed the vacation. Where dry  
rules were dispensed we have experiments.  
There are diagrams and illustrations in place  
of dull type. Instead of imprisoning pupils  
within stone walls, binding their bodies to  
benches, and enthralling their eyes to books,  
knowledge is now acquired by travel, — by  
studying nature at its own shrines, history at  
historical scenes, art in studios and workshops,  
Science at its head-quarters, politics in Parliaments, and common-sense everywhere.

Theology and Biblical history forming the  
Atlas upon which the other branches of educa-  
tion should be based, I, like all the worlds youths, joined the modem crusades after  
religious knowledge. Hieing to Syria, we  
wandered through Egypt, the Wilderness, the  
Holy Land, and the other Biblical arenas.  
Witn Jerusalem as our head-quarters, book  
after book of the sacred volume was assimi-  
lated as mental and religious food, under  
which genial discipline the buds of my  
intellect gradually opened.

In studying the early and sad annals of  
mankind, the class of 1,500 under Herodotus  
Macaulay, to -which I belonged, sojourned  
amid the theatres of ancient history. In the  
morning we would breakfast at Marathon, at  
mid-day dine at Thermopylae, in the afternoon  
follow the route of the devastation expeditions  
of Alexander, and finish  
by supping at the Ganges. Anon we would  
cross the Rubicon, and traverse the paths  
defiled by Caesar. Now we would pursue the  
bloody track of Hannibal, and anon trace the  
gory footsteps of Moloch's great ambassadors  
— the blood-thirsty Xerxes, Darius, Cyrus,  
Pyrrhus, Philip, Scipio, and Antiochus, visiting in our course the various fields where,  
under their auspices, Death had celebrated its  
gory festivals. Again we would tread the  
murder-strewn paths of Napoleon's or William's  
armies, and weep to think how the blood of  
thousands of Abels, massacred by Cains, had  
cried for vengeance.

In these pilgrimages I feasted my mind  
upon ancient history with all the zest of a  
knowledge-devouring epicure, and, as a dessert  
to this ponderous fare, I studied biography  
under Plutarch Johnson, and the elements of  
wit and humour under Cervantes Smith, How  
salubrious to the mental atmosphere of youth .  
are such studies! In biography we find  
practical moral philosophy — the true science  
of living and of life. In the study of wit and  
humour we are taught to discern their delicately-defined boundaries, that our young feet  
may not cross the frontiers of the adjoining  
realms of buffoonery, insipidity, and pertness.  
Yet I did not ignore the body by pampering  
the mind. None entered more heartily into  
sports aerial, terrestrial, or aquatic. With  
electric wings I oft soared to the margins of the  
atmosphere, with submarine equipments I oft  
frolicked in the depths of the ocean. I could  
ride on eagles and sharks, condors and whales,  
ostriches and sword-fish, with equal freedom.

But pressing forward my standard in the  
campaign of life, I early proved myself  
worthy of admission to the world's stronghold  
of learning — the Lyceum. The aspirations  
which heaved my soul over this achievement I  
can never forget. Instinct seemed to whisper  
to me that my life's mission might perchance  
call me to a lofty and sublime sphere of usefulness.

My father's gift in testimony of my success  
was a beautiful multimetre, which I still use.  
A compendium of all the precious stones skillfully united within the compass of a cubic  
centimetre, it bears on its face a chronometer  
with the unsolved puzzle of former days — a  
cycloidal pendulum. Coiling around it are a  
barometer and thermometer, while on the other  
side are a magnet and sextant, an astrolabe,and an apparatus showing the course of the sun,  
moon, and stars. Thus is comprised in this  
article the apparatus which a few years ago  
would have involved twenty separate instruments large enough to have filled a cart.

The etchings on the tablets of my memory  
of the day on which I left my home in Africa for  
Constantinople still possess their pristine fresh-  
ness. They portray with truthful vividness  
the hundreds that bustled around the gigantic  
balloon of which I was a passenger. But this  
scene is short. Our aerial vessel being released  
and its electrical wings being in full flap, is  
soon ploughing on through cloudy seas. Under  
us the country, like a vast panorama, rolls  
westward, revealing cities in all directions like  
islands amid oceans of cultivation. The picture is a panegyric of the age. Once these  
fertile fields were uncultivated marshes. How  
Triptolemus would smile on his invention,  
mused I, if he saw, as I now do, ploughs cutting  
up one hundred furrows simultaneously, and  
doing to perfection in a few minutes what was  
once only done imperfectly in weeks.

I also view with interest aerial crafts cross-  
ing our wake. Here are coveys of machines  
driven by the feathered creation, from sparrows  
to eagles. There is a youthful pair flying  
about with electric pinions. Little, I think,  
did the inventor of artificial wings think they  
would be used for love-making, and that wooing  
in the clouds would become the most favourite  
of all species of courtship.

Our planet's revolution having soon thrown  
the sun on our leeward side and left us in  
darkness, nocturnal beauties now flooded our  
souls. Above us were the heavens glistening  
with their battalions of suns ; below the lights  
of the earth formed a terrestrial firmament;  
while around were countless constellations of  
electric-lighted balloons. Agreeable reflections  
were elicited by the spectacle. Below us we  
surveyed the illuminated streets of the world,  
which, in consequence of our rapid motion,  
rolled past with such a swiftness as only made a  
fleeting impression on our vision. Above us we  
saw the stars of heaven gazing down from their  
heavenly places, serene and becalmed. Here,  
mused I, are the types of things earthly and .  
things heavenly. Below, all is transient and  
shifting. Above, all is peaceful and tranquil.  
After my eyes had fared on the sumptuous  
spectacle, — that spectacle, indeed, for which I   
had preferred the aerial route, — I retired to my  
berth. Buoyed in mid-air, rocked by the winds,  
with the breeze for a pillow and clouds for a  
bed, I went to sleep.


	2. The City of the World’s Desire

On rising next morning, and after floating  
through a congery of clouds some miles in  
length, we espied the world's metropolis. Be-  
fore us it lay bespangled with the gems of  
architecture, and possessed of an adventitious  
resplendence through the reflection of the morning sun upon its revolving multi-coloured ruby,  
diamond, opal, and amethyst domes, steeples,  
and minarets. If former generations gloried  
in their erections of massive stone, how  
overpowering is modem architecture, when the  
materials of masonry are those gorgeous bril-  
liants which the ancients reserved for ornamen-  
tation! Architecture has emerged from its  
chrysalis state since science has made diamonds  
out of charcoal, topazes, emeralds and sap-  
phires out of clay, and rendered these precious  
stones as plentiful as granite. Our age has  
thrown into masonry another beauty in the  
introduction of floral effects. How surpassing are  
those spires with their garlands of shrubbery!  
How superb those piles of poetry personified when  
thus enclasped by the arms of lovely Proserpina!

But the metropolis, beautiful in its parts,  
how peerless is its whole ! Such an elaboration  
of masonic genius ! Which of its millions of  
buildings can be removed without marring  
magnificence? Its map pictures the soul of  
symmetry. How then can pen, pencil, or tongue  
describe the reality ? It is more a garden than  
a city. Flora was the mason of Paradise, and  
is, therefore, well worthy to be wedded to architecture. Here are the grandest efforts of the poetry of the chisel. Here, epics, lyrics, and  
cantos in contour and construction breathe the  
eloquent language of vision. Noble works! Your forms are as lovely as the curves of a smiling Eve, and your colour as rich as those  
on Nature's palette — the rainbow.

We now heard the bells chiming concertos  
and sonatas, those strains which were wafting  
delight to so many souls. Flocks of aeronauts  
were already out — some driven by the swallows,  
some by crows, some by machinery, and some  
by thorough-bred eagles.

But, lo! the valve is opened, our machinery  
is silenced, we descend and alight after our  
flight of 3,000 kilometres. At the terminus  
I met Stephenson Watt. Yes, there we met,before our public life had reached the  
period of gestation, and before our names were  
indented on the tablets of history. Our minds  
being magnetic to each other, we took our  
wings out of our pockets and flew together to  
the Lyceum. With enthusiasm I viewed this,  
the greatest of all terrestrial structures, and  
enrolled myself as one of its alumni. With  
glowing feelings I was then shown this marvel  
of the world's marvels by my cicerone.  
Covering a larger area than the Constantinople  
of the ancients, it is a city in itself. Its streets,  
its squares, its domes and spires, its gardens,  
nay, its artificial lakes, rivers, and cascades,  
defy description and mock panegyric. " The  
ancients boasted," said Watt, " of the seven  
wonders of the world, but these walls comprise  
a thousand wonders more wonderful. They  
embody the shrines of science, art, and politics.  
That hall, the largest on earth, is the world's  
Parliament House. These buildings,  
each peculiarly adapted to its purpose, are the citadels of science, and those furtlier on are the demesnes of art."

Having entered the regions of science, we  
beheld observatories, to which, in size and  
height, the Tower of Babel was a mere hovel,  
and the botanical gardens with Titans of  
trees, whose umbrage might have shaded the  
Pyramids.

Having entered a pneumatic-tube carriage  
we were, in the course of a single heart-throb,  
blown to the top of the largest observatory.  
From its pinnacles we luxuriated in the peer-  
less Pisgah prospect of the surrounding country.  
With wonder-fraught feelings we inspected the  
mammoth telescope stationed here. With an  
aluminium tube like a tunnel, with rhodium-  
reflectors of some acres, and with  
engines of 200,000 horsepower to work its ma-  
chinery, it possesses the great convenience of  
enabling 1,000 observers to peer through it  
simultaneously. We thereafter visit the optical  
chamber, with its diamond domes, ruby and  
amethyst columns, and pearled pillars, blended  
as if in the mould of symmetry, and with its  
stained windows interspersing all, to which  
those of the ancients were apprentice studies.

At one point rises a combination of precious  
stones, arranged so as to form an artificial  
rainbow, which, being reflected by periscopes,  
presents the appearance of a whole avenue of  
rainbows. Proceeding to the daguerreotype-  
room, we witness those telescopic mirrors by  
which scenes at great distances can be viewed  
by means of the reflections being sent on from  
mirror to mirror. By this arrangement we  
see Paris and its repository of sights ; and Edinburgh, that beautiful district in the city of Britain. Thereupon the specula are changed  
at my request, and I behold my native place,  
5,000 kilometres distant.

We now visit the mammoth microscope,  
which appears like a mighty steeple in a  
mighty hall. Enormous in its optical power,  
and capable of being manipulated by a child,  
it is, nevertheless, adapted to 1,200 observers.  
That such a massive machine should be made  
of gold arid silver, makes me moralize that  
while the ancients prostituted the noble metals  
to such ignoble uses as bullion and trumpery,  
we now consecrate them to the sacred channels  
of usefulness. Various objects we view through  
this Cyclopean instrument. A grain of sand becomes a mountain, crowded with crevices,  
loaded with boulders, and bristling with  
crags and peaks. A drop of water appears a  
lake, whereof the surface is covered with waves  
and ripples. In small seeds we see locked up,  
arid only waiting for the key of Time to liberate  
them, numerous harvests of corn ; within the  
small areas of their pericarps we behold reservoirs of juices, endless systems of tubing,  
myriads of little storehouses, and an array of  
laboratories furnished with a profusion of little  
essentials for the formation of sap and pulp.  
A breath blown across the area of vision be-  
comes a cloud of vapour; corpuscles appear  
like fly-wheels. The corpuscles seem giant  
oaks, and the animalcules huge whales, while  
the molecules which cause smell look like  
oranges. Yet how far are we from knowing  
the ultimate particles of matter ? As the  
telescope does not carry us to the bounds of  
space, the microscope fails to convey us to the  
confines of minuteness. Indeed, were both  
instruments a million times stronger, we should  
not find an ultimatum in either direction.  
Science has already told us that Nature, like  
its Author, has neither bounds nor limits.

The walls of Chemistry Hall we find divided  
into segments, each of which is composed of a  
different element — the noble metals forming  
the pillars. Around are built up the organic  
and inorganic compounds, of which the protean  
substances, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, and  
hydrogen, alone fill some leagues of shelving.  
Commemorative of the victories of Science,  
we notice an artificial diamond, equal in size  
to the largest Egyptian pyramid, on the top of  
which is placed the ancient trinket called the  
Konoor. We smiled as we thought how  
this little jewel, once valued at two millions of  
pounds sterling, had seen such a revolution  
that it was now intrinsically worth nothing ;  
and how chemistry had unmasked the ancient  
pretensions of the diamond by showing it to be  
only a piece of carbon, and by triumphantly  
transforming the black into the real diamond.  
The reign of the gem among the great was  
thus ended. It was wrested from the lapidary  
and placed in the hands of the mason. Once  
only found in small atoms, and when found  
embossed in gold, it is now more plentiful than  
bricks, and forms the framework of entire cities.

Due prominence we also saw was accorded to the deeds of those distinguished chemists  
who, by discovering the means to render glass^  
diamonds, and all other brittle gems, malleable,  
made them subservient to an immensity of  
new uses.

We now behold orreries and maps of the  
planets and plans of planetary cities. Glorious  
circumstance ! Sidereal geography is now  
better known than was terrestrial geography  
in the nineteenth century. Flying to the next  
building, we witness the triumphs of acoustics.  
Here are scientific ears of Dionysius, so deli-  
cate as to render distinct the vibratory sound  
of the millionth part of a grain of matter, the  
ciliary movements of animalcula, or the growth  
caused by the enlargement and development  
of cells and molecules, both in animals and  
vegetables. Further on are auroscopes having  
communication with all parts of the globe, by  
means of which we hear the hum of waves in  
the South Seas, the singing of birds in Australia, and the music of a concert going on in South America.

In the architectural department we inspect  
the various styles from the primitive to the  
present, together with a museum of masonic curiosities and eccentricities. Here we see leaning  
towers of Pisa and telescopic steeples; and  
there are the wondrous jewelled erections,  
formed of the precious stones, embossed in  
gold, aluminium, cobalt, nickel, rhodium, and  
their alloys. Here are puzzles, enigmas, and  
fantasias in stone ; there are sentiments  
crystallized into ornamentation, and histories  
congealed into sculpture. In our survey, we  
justly expressed our surprise that, notwithstanding the opacity, the cumbersomeness, the  
brittleness and friability of stone, hundreds of  
generations should have lived and died in  
stone houses. When the grand masonry refor-  
mation did arrive, architecture glowed with a  
thousand new graces. No longer were houses  
built of opaque broken rocks, with glass holes for windows. Transparent malleable building-material  
was used, which imited grandeur to endurance  
and beauty to convenience. Simultaneously  
erections were rendered fire-proof. Not imprisoned as now, fire before this raged at  
large, and razed whole cities to their foundations — armies of fire-brigades and batteries of  
fire-engines warring against the enemy in  
vain.

Returned to our head-quarters, we were supplied with the last half-hourly edition of the  
Times, by which we saw that, a few minutes  
previously, the Australians had elected Wells  
King and Gray Burke as their representatives  
in the World's Parliament.

Remaining in-doors during the evening,  
we took advantage of the auroscopes in  
communication with the music-hall,^ a privi-  
lege in which ten thousand students indulged.  
Of vocalists, there were 30,000, in addition  
to a trained choir of 1,000 thrushes, lin-  
nets, and larks, an orchestra occupying an  
acre of benches, and a mammoth musical  
machine. Suddenly, an outburst of over-  
whelming harmony pealed forth, which swelled  
into such overpowering volumes, that we were  
irresistibly swept away before the floods of  
enravishment. On rushed this enrapturing  
tide for two hours, during which time our  
whole organism seemed concentrated in our  
ears.

The concert ended, Watt and I contrasted  
the nineteenth with the twenty-ninth century.  
The throats of great singers were now their  
mines of wealth; their every musical note realized a bank-note. For warbling a small  
ditty they would receive more than did Milton  
for his immortal epic ; for singing a few solo»  
they would be paid more than Handel for his  
imperishable ^ Messiah.'


	3. The Parliament of the world

Next morning (July 14, 2789) I was present  
at the most important parliamentary sitting  
of the period. On entering the world's senate-  
house, I was struck with its massiveness and  
its elaborate ornamentation. Its spacious dome  
and gorgeous domules, its countless galleries  
and aisles, its transparent forest-like columns,  
and, above all, the genius which crowded its  
benches, imbued me with veneration. Here,  
mused I, are the cream of the world's intellect,  
over whose deeds my young fancy has doted.  
Here are those [whose brains are living encyclopedias, and whose hearts are the hot-beds of philanthropy. What a mighty force of  
braindom is here ! What a concentration of  
ability ! Before me I see one-half of the  
world’s glory, as he who visited Greece, in  
ancient times, saw more than half of Athens' glory when he saw Solon.

The day's business was: — A bill for the further  
training of the lower animals, especially the  
insecta, — A bill to teach quadrupeds to fly  
by means of electric wings, — A bill to reclaim  
500 square miles of water, to be added to the list South-Sea peninsulas ; and, lastly, A bill to  
level the mountains of the world, fill up its  
redundant lakes, and widen its rivers. All  
these measures passed unopposed, save the  
last, which elicited the longest debate of the  
century, to wit, four hours.

The arguments of Brindley Telford, the  
leader of the movement, were built with  
the sterling adamant of common sense.' " What  
are mountains?" he asked. ^^They are the  
earth's lumber, which it behoves art to  
sweep away. They expose the earth's naked-  
ness-nakedness which man ought to cover  
with the thrifty garments of vegetation.  
Nature has stamped them with ruggedness,  
fierceness, and sterility, to proclaim their use-  
lessness. From them it has excommunicated  
the vegetable and animal creations. Winter  
alone, a fugitive from the other seasons, finds  
here any delight." Others trod the same path  
of argument. Rennie Smeaton characterized  
mountains as ^^ scabs on the face of fair  
nature"; Sostratus Jones as "hunches on its  
back " ; another declared they were " frowning  
wrinkles on the brow of the creation."

At length the grand debate closed, when the Senate decreed that, in respect of the importance of the measure, it, like all supreme questions, should be submitted to the judgment of the world.

While the discussion proceeded, I was in-  
terested to see individuals in one of the galleries  
making peculiar gestures. My curiosity was  
quenched on learning they were compositors,  
putting up speeches into print. Delightful  
sight ! — they were doing easily what was, in  
the past, the labour of a whole staff of reporters. But the greatest achievement in this direction, I could not forget, lay in printers  
not requiring to leave their offices at all, seeing  
the words of the speakers were carried to them  
by acoustical tubes.

Adjourning to the philosophical palaestra,  
where sat 100,000 disciples of truth, I heard  
discussed the philosophical problems of the day.  
Viewing the magnificent scene, I thought how  
all-powerful was science compared to those  
times when its soldiers had to fight their battles  
on the frigid frontiers of indifference, and  
when the harvest was plenty but the labourers  
few!

This same day, Stephenson Watt and I flew out with electric wings to note the architecture  
of Constantinople. Rising about ten kilometres  
above the ground, we alighted on the top of one  
of the chandeliers of the city. Perched here,  
I was thus instructed by my Mentor: —  
" Like all other cities in the world/' said he,  
" its plan resembles that of the garden-spider's  
net. It thus allows of the greatest possible  
area for house accommodation, the simplest  
and most efficient systems of transit, and the  
greatest scope alike for ornamentation and convenience. It consists, you observe, of alternate concentric rings of water, vegetation, and  
architecture around the Lyceum, which forms  
its nucleus. Like an island, this kernel is  
belted by water, yet spanned on all hands by  
superb bridges. Then comes a girdle of cultivation in parterres and hanging gardens, pregnant with verdant profusion and bearing trees like  
hills of vegetation. Then, reposing on the  
bosom of Flora, follows a string of buildings,  
comprising facsimiles of the seven wonders of  
the world, and all the famous erections of past  
times. Here are Egyptian masterpieces, in-  
cluding Karnak, the Pyramid, the Sphinx,  
-and the Theban palaces. Next come the Assyrian wonders — the Temple of Belus, with its walls one mile in height, and quays and  
bridges of Babylon, and the masonic marvels  
of Nineveh. Then follow the artistic glories  
of Greece and Rome, with their Parthenons,  
Pantheons, amphitheatres, and temples. A  
duplicate of the Colossus of Rhodes strides-  
across one of the radial rivers. The modem  
Pharos stands at another point. The flowery  
architecture of the Moors and Turks, the  
Goths and Britons, succeeds, including the  
Temple of Diana, the Alhambra, and St.  
Peter's. Encompassing this great museum of  
buildings is another belt of water, relieved by  
lakes at the spots where meet those silver  
threads the radial canals, and spanned at all  
points by the most brilliant jewelled bridges.  
A cincture of vegetation succeeds, and we are  
again brought to a perfect mountain chain of  
structural prodigies. Here are streets con-  
structed of artificial ivory, diamonds, china,  
rubies, sapphires, mica, and the egg-shells of  
thousands of dififerent species of birds. In  
another spot we have houses built by chemical  
means, by the simple precipitation of solids,  
from liquids. But why enlarge ? On and on goes this succession of concentric zones of luxuriant vegetation, iridescent buildings, and  
glittering waters, until we reach the city's,  
outskirts."

^^^Such a surpassing arrangement!" I ex-  
claimed. ^ ^ Every ring of vegetation is a coun-  
try in the city, and every circuit of buildings a  
city in the country. Every edifice is at once  
inland and aquatic. Constantinople, by means  
of those radial and concentric rivers, is an  
amplified and beautified Venice. But what  
were the bridglets of the past to the thousands  
of magnificent jewelled bridges we now see ?  
The gondolas, too, which emboss these waters  
beggar the beauty of the very barge of  
Cleopatra."

Re-ascending to the same point, we review  
the same scene by night. The chandeliers of  
the city, formed of these strong, yet light  
metals, aluminium and cobalt, from which hung  
millions of magnesium lights, all bearing a  
relation to the concentric and radial streets  
below, furnished an affluent supply of admi-  
ration to my young, ravenous fancy. Our  
conversation turned upon the great reservoir  
of light. Astonishing, it seemed to us, that in the nineteenth century men should have so ignored the sun as to work while it did not  
shine, and to sleep while it did. Not till the  
following century did man realize the enormous  
loss he necessarily sustained. Wisdom itself  
decreed midnight as a point before and after  
which sleep should be an equipoise. By ob-  
servance of this ritual, the health and wealth  
of humanity were greatly increased.

The subsequent day was Sabbath, and its  
sacred solemnities seemed to me the very soul  
of sanctity. A thousand bells were chiming  
pieces from the oratorios, and millions were  
streaming along the streets to church. Acous-  
tical tubes were simultaneously carrying the  
Word of God to thousands unable to attend  
worship. Devotion was in every heart, and  
prayer and praise on every lip.

In the course of another fortnight the world  
sat in tribunal over the question submitted to  
it by the Senate. Blessed are our times, when the world has the  
sense and the power to attend to itself, and  
when wisdom is ever found on the side of majorities !

The present plebiscite was conducted with  
such amazing despatch and serenity, that not  
a single wheel of the world's factories waa  
stopped, and not a throb of the world's transit  
circulation mistimed. The opinion of each  
voter was quietly consigned to paper, and sent  
by pneumatic-tube to the world's booths  
or judgment-seat, where the sentiments of  
mankind were correctly collected and exactly  
ascertained.

The following day the result of the poll wa&  
published. Unlike past ages, when indiffer-  
ence always prevented a large proportion of  
the electoral roll from voting, it was found  
there was not a voter but had polled. Equally  
satisfactory was the circumstance that the  
majority was decided. By a majority of  
suffrages in the ratio of 4 to 1*8, representing,  
in point of influence and years, the higher  
ratio of 28*1 to 3*2, it was decreed that the mountains should be removed and that six years  
should be allowed to permit of the maturation  
of proper plans, the equipment of sufficient  
armies, and the amassing of adequate machinery.


	4. On education and aquatic farming

After this plebiscite I plunged into my studies.  
I roamed about the laboratories, observatories,  
and museums, laboured in thought, and experimented from morn till eve. The researches of those famous chemists who, by extracting  
aromas from food-substances and substituting those  
more congenial, revolutionized cookery, and  
put the peach and the turnip on a level, won  
much of my attention. Basic food, with  
a due proportion of nitrogenous and carbonaceous elements, is thus all that the table now asks, the eater being allowed to flavour  
his viands according to his wishes by a regimen of pills.

Our classes all the while were seeing every-  
thing worthy of a place in our retina, and being  
taught those fundamental truths most worthy  
of being treasured in the archives of our memory.  
The hydrostatic class, numbering one thousand  
pupils, spent a week at the water-works of  
Arica. Among other sights, its fountain, the  
largest in this planet, its million jets of water  
so ingeniously and harmoniously commingled,  
and with its main gush of water ascending  
four kilometres into the air, impressed me as  
breathing the very spirit of sublimity. The  
large lake around had equally powerful attrac-  
tions. On its bosom we beheld daily the  
professors with their schools of swimmers,  
performing the evolutions of the aquatic  
terpsichorean art, and regiments of aquatic  
soldiers being drilled.

Our architectural class travelled from pole  
to pole for instruction ; but probably no scene  
did we view with greater interest than the  
modern Tower of Babel, in North America.  
To say that its charm to the eye is as bewitching as music to the ear, is little hyperbole. Its symmetry and massive magnificence are as peerless as if grandeur and beauty themselves had  
been its architects. Its stupendous diamond  
base, its ruby and amethyst arches, its laboured  
ornamentation, its embodiment of every precious  
stone and metal, its great blending of forms,  
its aggregation of all species of structural effect,  
its complexity of pillars, columns, arcades, con-  
volutions, and buttresses, and its tapering tower  
ascending from mile to mile, until the diamond-  
pointed aluminium pinnacles seemed lost in the  
sky, conspire to fill the mind with admiring  
awe. But I do not forget that while the  
ancient Tower of Babel commemorated the  
time when outraged Providence thrust different languages into the mouth of man, its modern antitype celebrates the occasion when,  
by God's grace, the world was again blessed  
with a universal tongue. Nor was this grand  
structure like those meaningless monuments  
of the past, only an empty spectacle. As  
in all modern buildings, its Ornament is only  
a graceful homage to its usefulness. It is a  
museum, an observatory, and a library. In  
its interior are conserved the riches of all literature ; an arsenal, with models of all modem and ancient machinery ; and a battery of the  
most powerful astronomical artillery. Of  
all its parts, the library pleased me most.  
Yet it was its smallness which captivated  
my admiration. In times past, the writings  
found here would have filled five British  
Museums, and weighed thousands of tonnes ;  
but seeing they are condensed into microscopic books, they axe compressed into a few grammes of paper, and fill only a few metres  
of shelving.

All this while I studied literature, ancient  
and modern, culled sweets from every author,  
and employed my best abilities in mental  
scrutiny, and other elementary literary feats.  
When the wings of my ambition were stronger,  
I commenced a larger work, which brought  
into play the full machinery of my intellect.  
For some years, therefore, I taxed my brain,  
my senses, and my fingers, in thinking,  
reading, and making researches. Now I was  
constructing mental fabrications, anon smoothing them into simplicity. Now I was rebuilding my conceptions, and anon carving them  
into symmetry. Patiently I laboured on, now  
devising, and anon revising, not as one who  
worked against time, but as one who toiled  
in the trade of truth, and built as his brain  
supplied the material.

Agricultural excursions formed, also, an  
important item in my education. Our class  
was transported from latitude to latitude and  
longitude to longitude ; from sea to land, and  
land to sea, in order to view all the phases of  
the art. Aquatic husbandry was especially studied. With submarine equipments, we  
wandered over various ocean-beds, and noted  
all the varieties and peculiarities of oceanic  
crops. In referring to the art's advance, our  
teacher pointed out how two hundred generations of agriculturists had lived and died without appropriating one single square yard  
of the beds of those waters, which formed  
the greater part of the earth's surface.  
"Why!" said he, "the origination and development of aquatic farming were worth another world to man. So brilliant was the reality,  
that the retina of man's mind was at first  
dazzled with wonder. To the amazement of  
amazement itself, rocks were rendered fertile  
soils, sand-banks were made submarine farms,  
and marine deserts were transformed into  
fruitfiil fields. The regions of Neptune were  
occupied for ever by triumphant Ceres. Sea-  
weeds were dignified into sea-crops. By  
land and sea agriculture was universal.  
Enlightened science threw its bread on the  
waters, and we are reaping the fruits after  
many days.''

Our Mentor also referred jubilantly to the  
agricultural hygiene applied to those terri-  
tories of diseased soil found in olden times,  
called fens, marshes, wildernesses, and deserts  
and how Ceres now sweats out of their im-  
proved mould the heaviest exactions year after  
year.

Concerning Botany, our Corypheus taught  
us how its glories lay in the luxuriant fields  
of its practical bearings, and not in the arid  
desert of its theory. Taking us to the world's  
botanical garden in Italy, we were shown how  
trees and shrubs could be cultivated to ten  
times their natural size, and be moulded inta  
any form. We saw them shaped into chairs,  
tables, doors, frames, planks, sofas, and couches,  
demonstrating how well Nature could be made  
to ape the carpenter. The peculiarity and  
the number of the hybrids I also duly studied  
and the amazing modifications made on trees-  
and plants by physiological appliances. We saw  
fir cultivated so as to be harder than beech,  
darker than mahogany, heavier than rosewood,  
and, at the same time, moulded into extraordinary devices. We saw shrubs developed into trees, and trees dwarfed into shrubs. We  
beheld, indeed, innumerable metamorphoses  
in colour, texture, and form, made on all  
species of plants — not mere  
curiosities, but important in their bearing upon  
the arts.


	5. The factories of the world

Like the other students, I aided in the various   
scientific investigations of the times. Among  
other things, I served in the array of dilettanti under Mendelssohn Beethoven, who was commissioned to make certain advances in   
acoustics. 

An important item then prominent in the   
index of history was the adoption of Greenland as the seat of the world's factories. This step was taken because the measure having   
been previously adopted to warm the polar   
regions, not only with artificial breezes from   
the equator but with caloric forces from the earth's   
interior, it was resolved to make the motive   
force thus obtained subservient to drive the   
wheels of art as well as control the weather.   
The great thermal operations had already been carried out by Black Lambert. As history shall ever delight to record, he performed for   
posterity a service which can never be for-   
gotten, and with a zeal and indomitability   
which shall ever elicit admiration. Boldly   
penetrating the crust of these snowy mantled   
regions, through the agency of a million of   
workers, and a proportional budget of machinery, he made a huge yawning abyss which every day deepened. To the inspiriting sounds   
of the most sublime music the workers bravely   
stormed the difficulties they met at each step,   
and tunneled their way further and further   
through the earth's rind. Rocks were blasted,   
subterranean streams were stemmed, great   
caverns impregnated with poisonous gases were   
purified, great seas of liquid lava and burning   
bitumen were forded, and great non-fusible embankments   
built throughout the whole route to ensure that   
the pathway to this Avernus might be safe and   
enduring; while railways, pneumatic tubes   
and telegraphs were constructed along the   
course, that the workers in this nether world   
might enjoy all the resources of the upper.   
Happily, as the operations became more complex, the energy and machinery of the   
thermal army became more powerfiil. 

Ere the downward march had proceeded   
forty miles, it engendered a larger fund of   
heroism than all the wars of the most warlike   
ages. It educed more enterprise than had   
been expended upon any fifty schemes in pre-   
millennial times. With so long a line of supply,   
with fiery inundations threatening from below,,   
and watery or gaseous irruptions from above,   
the work still progressed. But it would take  
volumes to give the mere details of the   
thousands of great and the millions of small   
difficulties which were met and overcome ere   
the eightieth mile was reached, and with it   
the earth's molten yolk. No sooner was this,   
point gained than the caloric tubes were   
dipped into this incandescent sea, and laid all   
the way to the earth's surface, so that the subterranean heat might be borne thither. Ere this the weather- works were completed; consequently, the day which saw the thermal tube extended to them was that in which Greenland   
doffed for ever its snowy top-coat, and donned   
the green garments of Ceres. This part of the   
work fell under the supervision of Edmure Fahrenheit, who nobly succeeded, by means of   
his mighty army, in softening the asperities   
of the cKmate, and in introducing summer into   
this erewhile barren region. 

With mushroom - growth speed rose the   
world's factories. Trenches were succeeded   
by walls, walls became roofed, and soon the   
great houses were the emporia of .the most   
powerful machinery the world had ever seen. Factories and workshops, erst scattered   
over the globe, were here mobilized, that the   
world's industrial operations might be conducted with the greatest possible economy.   
Unfortunately, the work was nearly finished   
when I received my appointment in the   
chemical corps of this great army of industry.   
My term of service extended sufficiently   
long to enable me to sow new crops of ideas   
into the fields of my mind. Studying the   
subject of heat, I thought of the nineteenth   
century, when cities teemed with fire-devouring   
monsters of machinery, monsters whose voraciousness was such that it was dreaded they would soon consume the whole colliery supplies   
of the world; and when, withal, the absurdity   
was not even suspected of men complaining for want of fuel when they lived on the crust of an astronomical furnace. 

The earth had only completed two ecliptics   
after this, when the Greenland factories were   
able to supply textile goods to the whole   
world. Covering, as the buildings did, so many   
square miles, and embracing such a vastness of   
machinery, their sight was only rivalled by   
the magnitude and splendour of the caloric   
works. The awful appearance of the furnaces,   
that artificial Tartarus, none dare describe;   
for what did e'er human eyes behold to which   
they could be compared ? As to the ocean of   
machinery which has now for so many years   
performed the world's work, man beholds here   
the largest engines ever constructed. The   
cylinders are like hills, and the fly-wheels like   
rainbows. Here we are amid a rolling sea of   
wheelules, wheels, and arch-wheels ; and there,   
amid a host of battling, tearing, and striving   
rods, shuttles, and beams. Here we are encompassed by mountains of raw, uncouth material; there we stand in the midst of hills of newly   
made goods. Here we are surrounded by   
forests of engineering, and there by labyrinths   
of looms. 

But behold the massiveness of the operations! Here are thousands of bales of flax in   
the process of mastication by the million-   
teethed jaws of the machinery. Next moment   
we behold them torn, triturated and digested,   
trimmed into threads, interwoven into patterns,   
and, lastly, issuing as acres of linen. What a   
pleasure to witness this wondrous reality — to   
behold cloth made at the rate of a mile a   
minute — and to think that the wool which   
may be covering the backs of thousands of   
sheep, and the lint and cotton fragrant and   
blooming in the morning may, in the course of   
the, day, go through the gradations of clipping,   
washing, bleaching, dressing, spinning, weaving, shaping and tailoring, and be covering the backs of thousands of the human family in the   
evening ! 

Then followed the erection of the world's   
laboratories and foundries. Hitherto scattered   
over the globe, they were now centralized at   
the caloric emporium. The earth being but a   
mighty cosmic crucible, it was wisely seen   
that artificial furnaces were a superfluity, and   
that it only required the necessary enterprise   
to appropriate Nature's own distilleries, and to avail ourselves of its subterranean laboratories.  
Forming a unit in the millennial army that   
undertook the complexity of operations neces-   
sary to achieve this great object, my enthusiasm,   
as well as my mere attention, was drafted into   
the measure. As the world well knows, the   
result of our labours was superior even to our   
high-pressure expectations. Completed, we   
found to our joy that one-fourth of the former   
staff of men were enabled to supply mankind   
with minerals and chemicals. The newly   
constructed works were justly for the time the   
wonder of the world. Below were the mighty   
recesses in which were conducted the melting   
of the ore and the smelting of the metals.   
Upon the ground were ranges of fusible-proof   
pumps, which disgorged as needed streams of   
the molten alloys ; around were the beds for   
the moulding, and above were the workshops   
in which were executed the polishing and   
finishing. 

What an amount of metals, alloys, and   
amalgams are here daily prepared! What   
loads of machinery are daily cast, mounted,   
and exported ! Here are seen hills of cobalt   
cables, cobalt ropes, palladium engines, aluminium steeples and optical apparatus,   
magnesium wire, and etceteras that baffle   
-enumeration. 

The aluminium department was then, as now,   
deemed the greatest of the sights. Here were   
seen vast pyramids of clay and potsherds   
gradually being swallowed up in a huge yawning pit, and being carried through a variety of crucibles, and ultimately re-appearing on the   
one hand in a stream of gold-like aluminium,   
and on the other in heaps of silicon. Around   
were seen the millions of articles into which   
the metal was moulded, and for which it was   
extensively used by reason of its union   
of levity with durability, and strength with   
malleability. 

The magnesium, department was scarcely   
less interesting. There one saw the strange   
metamorphosis of the magnesia dust, or Epsom   
salts, into the pure metal; while around were   
beheld the thousand and one uses which it   
observed. 

Finding so much delight in the state of the   
arts in the twenty-ninth century, I was in love,   
albeit, with its political economy. It entails   
"the maximum of speed and excellence in work with the minimum of trouble. Time was,I mused, when frail flesh and blood, urged by   
beating and overspent hearts, did what is now  
done by unsweating and unwearying wheels,   
and unfatigued and unfatiguable pistons.   
Nine-tenths of men were hewers of wood and   
drawers of water. Man, made by God a little   
lower than the angels, made himself lower than   
the brutes. Clad in the weeds of beggary, and   
ill fed or unfed, he often spent his life slaving  
in pits, in ditches, or in quarries ; oft he was   
imprisoned all day long in factories, or for   
months on end in snail-paced floating prisons.   
Some more unfortunate still pursued the trade of making their sacred tabernacles,   
the targets for the shafts of death, and their   
hands the ministers of murder and massacre.   
Nor did the ancients seem to think that, while-   
man needed much recreation and refreshment,,   
the iron limbs of art needed none. Accordingly human and mechanical machinery were   
then worked the same amount of time. Long   
was it ere man was released from his over-   
burdened manual labours, and the due and   
fullest exactions laid upon the mechanical   
powers. Nor was the measure quickly consummated. An improvement was first introduced by having two relays, then three   
relays, of workmen to work alternately the   
same machinery. Lastly, there was the combination of the system, in having four shifts, during the twenty-four hours, each of which   
labours six hours.


	6. The geographical reformation

I next served as a cadet in the army of geographical research, which investigated how the mountain chains and table-lands might be best   
levelled and appropriated, and how Ceres   
might clothe sterility with the joys of vernal   
bloom and autumnal riches. Never was there   
such a talented conclave of the aristocracy of   
science. Its organization and its heroic energy   
were prophetic of the grandest results. Though   
sundered into 3,000 isolated battalions, which   
were scattered over the whole earth, the telegraph, pneumatic tubes, and the railway knit them together, and enabled them to enjoy all   
the advantages of concerted action. 

Only three years had run their course from   
the present tense into the past since the   
measure had been adopted by Parliament  
years which had been diligently spent, according to the world's decree, in overcoming preliminary difficulties and in maturing plans   
for future procedure. During this time platinum and palladium tilt-hammers and battering rams of transcendent strength had   
been forged, huge diamond boring-engines   
constructed, electric engines of unequalled   
strength manufactured, immeasurable quantities of fulminates and re-agents amassed, and huge arsenals equipped, replete with cobalt chains,   
aluminium trucks, diamond rails and railroads,   
ruby mounted wheels and electric balloons.   
Above all, the brute creation had been made   
subservient to the acceleration of the work.   
Under the leadership of Aldrovandus Ray, a   
levy of 40,000 naturalists were engaged for   
years in forming 100 different zoological   
armies. Each of these were, by an admirable   
system of drill,brought to such a high state of   
discipline that a brigade, consisting of 1,000   
elephants, 1,000 rhinoceroses, 180,000 monkeys,   
and 15,000 other beasts of draught and burden,  
could be officered with perfect ease by as few   
as 100 naturalists. Birds of burden and fish   
of burden were in like manner drafted into   
the ranks of the zoological army, and, being subjected to similar training, were brought to   
a similar degree of efficiency. 

Furnished with these mighty forces and   
this mighty artillery, our mighty pioneering   
campaign commenced. On September 22, 2792,   
we were marshalled at our head-quarters in   
the Himalayas, when we arranged upon plans   
for future action. In these unbounded scope   
was advice offered to all the leaders for originality of   
procedure and for strategical action. All the   
wars that ever disgraced nations never supplied such a fruitful field for manoeuvre. But the master-minds of the world were equal to   
the greatest labours. The grandest master-   
strokes of a Hannibal and a Napoleon in tactics   
and in rapidity of action were surpassed daily.   
The leaders who were appointed included, to my   
great delight, Stephenson Watt, who, though only   
bearing the experience of twenty-three summers,   
his comprehensive genius was already rising   
like a morning sun over the commonwealth of   
intellect. In his brigade I served. Having our   
lattention directed to the Andes, we traversed   
its four thousand miles with our balloons, eagles,   
condors, and scientific artillery. In our untrodden course our eyes were fed on the strange phenomena peculiar to such altitudes ; snow   
mantled the barrenness below, and mock-suns and   
phantasmagoria relieved the azure canopy above.   
Our geologists inspected the whole of the strata   
of the ridges, our mineralogists their metals,   
our chemists their elements, and our botanists   
their plants. Our researches were deemed so   
important that a concentration of all the   
mountain iconoclasts was ordered upon the   
Andes. In a few hours balloon after balloon   
arrived. For their accommodation, a large   
camp was formed on Cotopaxi, which was supplied with caloric energy from the volcano by means of thermal tubes. In eighteen hours the   
muster was complete. It was now evening,   
and the moon, as it shone down upon its   
mistress world, viewed one of the most sublime   
sights of history. Our army of 800,000 men was   
ensconced on this pinnacle, along with a retinue   
of thousands of quadrupeds, tens of thousands   
of bipeds, and an enormous aerial flotilla.   
Amid the sublime fascinations of music, our   
extempore city spent the evening on this virgin   
peak. 

Next morning not a vestige was left to betray   
the place of our bivouac. Under the leadership of Stephenson Watt, Brindley Telford,   
Rennie Smeaton, Black Lambert, and Lavoisier Priestley, our aeronautic armada had sailed,   
our eagles had flown with their human burdens,   
and we had commenced our survey along the   
Andes chain. At seven hundred different spots   
we blasted enormous peaks and crags. The   
explosions, the most terrific that had been   
attempted in history, were heard for leagues   
around, and made hideous gashes in the mountainsides. The result was most satisfactory. The neighbouring cities, forewarned of the   
blasting, were so forearmed that not a single   
accident occurred ; while, on the other hand,   
seventy-six most precious mineral beds were   
discovered. In consequence of these results,   
we telegraphed for a new army of sappers and   
miners, which arrived that afternoon, and   
which in a few days amassed no less than   
20,000 tons of rich metals. 

The following day a scientific congress was   
held over our researches, and the great army   
was then dispersed into its previous divisions   
throughout the world. After some further   
triumphant exploratioils, which disclosed some   
thousands of tons of precious metals, we were concentrated at the Ural Mountains, and encamped on Mount Taurus for two successive   
evenings. During the next month our army   
was focussed in its full strength at all the great mountain ranges, finishing with the Himalayas. Here our researches were summarized,   
and among the leaders specially honoured for   
their scientific intrepidity were Russell Lesseps,   
Mercator Humboldt, and Stephenson Watt.   
The rank and file of our own body, having   
now performed their mission, were disbanded,   
while the leaders resolved themselves into a   
coimcil, to subject the enormous stores of our   
inyestigations to an analysis, and to frame plans   
for the proposed geographical reformation.   
Nobly they fulfilled their Herculean task.   
Rapidity of decision, unerring generalizations,  
brilliant generalship, characterized their rule.  
Not a moment was prostituted on delay. The   
unanimity was unruffled. Before the sitting   
had lasted one hour, they had arranged upon   
plans for carrying out the rough part of the   
work, especially in the table-lands, reserving   
details for more mature deliberation. Brassey   
Brunel was accordingly ordered to levy an   
array of 3,000,000 workers, 10,000,000 beasts and birds of burden, 8,000 locomotives, and   
50,000 balloons. The commission was fulfilled with all the amazing alacrity of this   
arch-genius. Telegraphy, convulsed in its great   
network of wires and needles over the whole   
globe, was enlisting the services of myriads,   
and the entities of the mighty army, in answer   
to its call, were hieing from all latitudes.   
The Underground Railway groaned under its   
loads, and the air became blackened with the   
mighty scientific armaments flying to the spot.   
In twenty-four hours the mobilization of the   
mighty army was eflfected at the Himalayas,   
and operations were forthwith commenced.   
The very skies seemed to resound with the   
blows of the battering-rams with which art   
now bombarded the mountains. The electricians, under Galvani Volta, with machines   
a hundred times more powerful than lightning,   
were rending peaks, larger than the pyramids,   
to their foundations, and shaking mountains   
for miles around. An army of chemists was   
busily preparing re-agents, which melted the   
rocky structures like salt. Huge lakes of   
nitric, sulphuric, hydrochloric, and hydro-   
fluoric acids were collected, rivers of which were sent to all the necessary points. The   
fountain-heads of these lakes were laboratories   
covering several square miles. The transit   
system meanwhile was rendered so perfect, as   
to transport millions of tons of debris weekly   
by balloons, birds, and by rail, to fill up   
superfluous lakes. Two millions of miles of   
diamond rails were laid, which, by reason   
of their gradients down the mountainsides,   
bore away the loaded trucks by mere gravitation. Enormous foundries were stationed   
along the peaks, at intervals of one himdred   
miles, to supply and repair the artillery for   
the mammoth army. Myrmidons of mineralogists and geologists were encamped on the peaks, and, like plunderers, seized on all the   
precious metals which were disembowelled,   
and had them sent on to head-quarters.


	7. The Atlantic and Mediterranean bridges

When my short commission in the mountain  
army had expired, I studied theoretical and  
practical zoology. In this field of labour, I  
could not but draw my eyes pitifully to the  
times when the science was confined to the  
bare bones of nomenclature. Up to the  
nineteenth century millions of the lower  
animals roamed about wild — a terror not only  
to each other but to man himself. The great  
commonwealth of the creation were rebels from  
his dominion. What a physical force man  
thus lost! And why? Because civilization  
waged war against the world's Fauna. The  
jpenchant of those times was blood. The  
highest kind of game was man, and the  
highest order of hunters warriors. Then followed the Nimrods of all grades, down to the sportsman and the angler. 

Our times, believing in the sacredness of  
life, not only among men but the lower  
animals, view this ancient system with grief.  
Zoology has taught us that the members of  
the brute creation are not aliens but allies.  
Through its advance, the once savage beast is  
savage no longer. The science is exalted to  
that pitch whereby man has been enabled to  
resume his primeval sovereignty over the  
animal kingdom. Lions, leopards, and tigers  
have become beasts of burden. Armadilloes,  
moles, ferrets, foxes, worms, rabbits, and  
marmots are miners. Birds are messengers  
and musicians. Eagles, swallows, and ostriches  
are the Mercuries of man. Elephants and  
alligators are labourers. Fishes are sailors.  
That mighty sea-king the whale has got a  
hook in his jaws and a bridle in his mouth, and  
is trained to draw vessels. The coral by  
sea, the beaver by land, and the unnumbered  
genera of Crustacea and Molluscs in both  
elements are masons; The insecta are dyers,  
spinners, and wood-cutters. That erewhile  
loathed animal the spider is a weaver of unrivalled fabrics, and might again challenge a  
Minerva to equal it in this craft. Rats are  
scavengers, moles and mice irrigators, beetles  
enamellers, while monkeys work in every  
trade. Even the once-detested bugs and Hce  
have their employment ; and every animal,  
from the amaiba to man, has its mission.  
But zoology has also taught man how to  
rear stock. As the cultivated surpasses the  
wild rose, so do the splendid breeds of modem  
thoroughbred animals excel the specimens of  
olden times. Eagles are now so powerful' that  
boys can ride upon their necks. Some  
varieties of modem oxen are as fleet as the  
once-famed Derby racers. . Others are stronger  
than the most powerful dray-horses of ancient  
times. 

Physiology has likewise promoted the in-  
terests of zoology. It has taught men to  
acclimatize Polar beasts to torrid zones, and  
tropical animals to the frigid regions. Witness,  
too, how proper training has made peace reign  
over the great commonwealth of zoology. No  
longer does one race of animals live upon  
another. Vultures fare no more on carrion,  
eagles on lambs, or the lion on prey. Universal concord rules the animal kingdom. The  
prophecy, that the lion would fraternize with  
the lamb, has been fulfilled. 

While in the zoology class, I, along with  
the other pupils, received great facilities to  
study the practical part of the science. We  
were engaged in superintending the plaster-  
work by barnacles of many of the Adriatic  
bridges, and took part in the instruction of  
the arachnida and many other species of  
insecta in textile manufacturing, in addition  
to various zoologico-engineering, zoologico-  
architectural, and zoologico-mechanical under-  
takings. The most important of these was  
the Embassy, which, by means of immense  
beds of oysters, mussels, periwinkles, and  
snails, conducted the alterations and repairs,  
on the Panama Straits bridges. A few weeks  
sufficed to veneer them with the shelly layers  
desired, and a few days more saw their  
ornamentation completed. The beauty and  
strength of the work were such as brought  
the bridges up to the zenith of modern  
excellence. 

When further advanced in my studies, I  
assisted in one of the great enterprises of the times, the elucidation of the language of the brute creation. Adam imquestionably understood their vocabulary, and research ere long shall doubtless put us on a level with our  
primitive parent on this important point.  
Thanks to the efforts of philosophers, we are  
now supplied with a key to the rudiments  
of the zoological language. The successes of  
our specific efforts are well known, and  
they shall be heralded with praise when  
all the infernal squabbles of the ancients,  
known by the name of Trojan and Punic  
Wars, the Crusades and Continental campaigns and invasions, shall only be remembered as the scourges and curses of  
bygone history. 

In the course of our studies we were taken  
to these masterpieces of zoology, the Atlantic  
bridges, and received there practical illus-  
trations of the different species of masonry  
constructed by the molluscs and others of  
the humbler members of the zoological con-  
stituency. 

What a mighty enterprise — nay, what an  
aggregation of enterprises — is each of these  
bridges! Man unaided could not have built them in centuries, but with the assistance of the lower animals the great cumulation of  
work was focussed into the limits of a few  
years. Sublime was the conception to muster  
coral from the South Seas, Crustacea and  
zoophytes from every shore, whales from  
Greenland, fishes from every ocean, to con-  
centrate them in the line of operations, and  
make them subservient to all the purposes of  
aquatic building. Triumphant was the success  
by which the Crustacea and molluscs, and all  
shelled animals were insensibly not only taught  
the art of masonry, but how to render their  
own secretions their material, and their own  
viscera their quarries. By most ingenious  
physiological measures these secretions were  
increased, and the work correspondingly expedited. View the mighty results which proceeded from this knowledge and these discoveries!  
Millions of corals, spitting out their excrements,  
formed the piers of some arches. Billions  
of diatoms and the foraminifera, legions of  
oysters, cockles, barnacles, whelks, limpets,  
and mussels, discharging from their entrails  
stores of solid masoniy, soon added their  
stones — to wit, their own shells — to the cairns. Thus were the piers of these mighty bridges the work of animalcula and molluscs, whose  
only tools were their own organisms, and  
whose only bricks were their own teguments  
and excrements. 

The whales, sharks, and dolphins were commissariats, who bore huge trains of provisions for these geological labourers and masons ; and  
the smaller fishes were engaged distributing  
the supplies. 

When the aquatic masons had built up the  
piers to the surface of the water, naturalists  
brought forward land-masons in the shape of  
hosts of birds and mammalia, insecta and mol-  
lusca. The railways groaned under the weight  
of the snails, gastropoda, tortoises, and arma-  
dilloes, sent on hourly for week after week. Flocks  
of birds arrived apace firom all quarters of the  
globe, under the command of the most distinguished ornithologists. Two millions of men superintended the mammoth undertakings, who  
manned the largest etherial navy that had ever  
been engaged upon one work. Daily as the mighty  
machinery of men, animals, and instruments  
became mightier, the operations veered towards  
simplicity. Difficulties melted like mist before the powerful array of talent. Every day  
saw new "crops of improvements and inven-  
tions harvested and appropriated. Every  
day added strength to the hopes of the archi-  
tects. 

The extraordinary strength of some of the  
-coarse-shelled molluscs being noted, the abut-  
ments and central parts of the piers were ren-  
dered the sphere of their operations ; while the  
more polished deposits of the. tortoise, the  
mussel, and the oyster, and the pearl secretors,  
gained for them the mission to enamel and  
veneer the rough work of their fellow-tradesmen.

The first bridge, though the smallest and  
most humble of the seven, was the noblest in  
respect that it inaugurated the great achievement of making the vast kingdom of zoology subservient to the purposes of architecture.  
As the humble engine of Watt is more re-  
nowned in the eye of fame than the thousand  
elephant-power machine of our day, so this  
bridge, though now infinitely outstripped in  
elegance and strength, will be enshrined in the  
temple of fame qs the most celebrated of all zoologico-architectural undertakings. History shall ever delight to tell how, as year after  
year was added to the conquests of time, the  
piers saw beauty joined to their strength and  
strength to their beauty. Over a wider field  
than could be grasped by a thousand different  
eyes at a thousand different spots, rose out of  
the water the huge pillars, each crowded with  
the denizens of the field, surrounded by flocks  
of balloons and birds in mid-air, fleets of  
vessels on, and shoals of fishes and submarine  
crafts under, the water. At length the lower  
animals had all but completed their wondrous commission, and, as if satisfied with  
their labours, extraordinary was the extravagance of their gambols and frolics. The  
linnets, larks, and nightingales sang with  
greater glee, the eagles, albatrosses, and  
condors flew about their work as if embued  
with a new energy ; while the flocks of  
other animals frisked about as if to add their  
testimony of delight. 

The artillery of science was now forwarded  
to span the pedestals already raised. The  
mightiest agencies in the world were brought  
into requisition, and mountain loads were raised  
and adjusted. The gigantic feats outfabled fables themselves. Millions of kilometres of  
cobalt chains, millions of acres of adamantine  
flooring, and millions of tons of alloys were  
used in the great work, and duly built into  
position, tested, and found satisfactory. In a  
few years, to the joy of the world, posterity  
had received one of its grandest legacies.  
Europe and America had been knitted by this  
marvellous zoologico-architectural isthmus.  
The day of the bridge’s opening was one of  
history's red-letter days. No fewer than forty  
millions crossed in the procession from Europe  
into America, and an equal number in the  
procession from America into Europe, each of  
which comprised forty thousand three-story  
high carriages and one thousand locomotives,  
and in length extended over thirty miles.  
Triumphant were the journeys. Fleets of  
vessels, from one to a hundred thousand tons  
burden, decked with bunting, lay on each side  
of the bridge, or were passing and repassing  
through its capacious arches. Armaments of  
balloons filled the air, burnished with embellishments ; while the mammoth menageries of animals, erewhile engaged in the work, were  
present to add to the spectacle. Birds sang, dolphins gamboled, and the mighty army of leviathans disported around the scenes with their fountains in  
full play. 

The splendid success which crowned the  
building of the first bridge formed only the  
prelude to greater exploits. Bridge followed  
bridge, each grander than its predecessor. All  
the beauties of architecture found their way  
into their formation. Every successive bridge  
was more and more enriched with the garniture  
of splendour, until the seventh, which was  
forty times stronger, four times broader, and  
infinitely more beautiful than the first, though  
its construction only occupied one-seventh of  
the time. 

O noble work not built by hands, yet  
planned by brains ! For thee no quarries were  
disembowelled, nor forests felled. As with  
Solomon's Temple, so with thee, neither the  
sound of hammer nor axe was heard during  
thy formation. For thee no mortar was  
required, nor elaborate scaffolding. Human  
hands neither chiselled thy sides nor built thy  
piers. No. Thou art mountains of the world’s excrement.  
Thou wert formed by the plasmic power of the lower animals ; and yet such achievements in symmetry, and such feats in beauty ! Steered  
by the helm of Science, and impelled by the  
oars of Art, to what perfection has Nature been  
impelled!


	8. A tour of the world

In politics, my first lessons took the form of   
travel. I joined the peregrination class, of   
one thousand pupils under Cobden Bright.   
As an humble memento of my respect for my   
teacher, I will sketch some of the details of our   
sojoumings. In this pleasing duty, I cannot hit   
the eye of my purpose better than by making   
the following lines a setting for the various   
gems of his observations during this time. In   
setting out, we took the marine route. Boarding our steamer at the Lyceum, our Mentor gathered us around him, and taught our eyes   
to see, and our minds to perceive, judge, and   
reason. 

"We’re about to make a few windings,'' he said,   
" round this small ship in the solar fleet called   
the earth, and to view the scars and vestiges   
scraped or scattered upon it called wonders. Let us ever keep open our eyes and ears, these portals to the granary of our brain, for thereby   
we may glean a rich harvest of information.   
When we consider that Time in ancient days   
plundered in a million preventible directions   
from travellers, and that weeks were wasted in   
prisons on wheels, months frittered away in   
marine lock-ups, and that man was then but a   
crawling crab at the bottom of the world's aerial   
ocean, without the capacity to soar or the power   
to burrow, we see how mighty are our oppor-   
tunities, and therefore how deep our responsibilities. Speed has so mended its pace, that science, with its seven-league boots, can give   
us our breakfast at the North Pole, and our   
dinner at the South Pole. Already the scene   
is suggestive. See how, in our electrical   
steamer, we are flying past those myriads of   
crafts, through those artificial rivers, below   
those jewelled bridges, and amid those luxuriant   
buildings and gardens. But behold, we are   
emerging into the Sea of Marmora, where we   
view around us vessels compared to which the   
Great Eastern of ancient times was but a pigmy.   
Survey one of the first-rate ships of our times.   
Its deck is covered with gardens and hamlets, and teems with a city of inhabitants. In size, it is a floating island ; in resources, its hold and   
decks are mines and storehouses. Its machinery   
is a whole range of engines. Of paddles, it has   
dozens. Manned by an army of sailors, some   
on horseback, and others who are accoutred   
with electrical wings, its power and force are   
such as to make frolic with the hugest of   
breakers. The great triumph of navigation,   
however, now lies in its perfect safety. In past   
days the seas were crowded with rocks, reefs,   
shoals, and sandbanks. Millions went to sea   
to find their grave. Rivers of bitter tears have   
flowed over the tragedies of seafaring life. So  
many Euphrosynes have been changed into   
Niobes through the woes thus engendered. Not   
till the blessed era of universal peace, when the   
stagnant pools of perverted work were drained   
towards channels of usefulness, was commenced   
the enterprise of improving the highway of the   
seas. Science, then, with divine energy, burst   
the rocks and cleared sea after sea of its snares.   
The end was gloriously crowned by having the   
coasts margined with soft material, on which   
it was impossible for vessels to be wrecked.   
Simultaneously, man's conquest over the elements by means of weather works erased shipwrecks from the catalogue of man's vexations."   
Having reached Greece, we disembarked.   
Bright thus philosophized over the thoughts   
conjured by its scenes : — " Where are now the   
isles of Greece ? Alas for poetry, but all hail   
to science, they are coalesced into the mainland. Like all isles, they are obsolescent. Bridges and artificial isthmuses have transformed them   
into peninsulas. Witness the triumphs of   
science, and behold how its revolutions are   
reformations. The Suez Canal and its development into the Suez Straits transformed the peninsula into the island of Africa. But the   
wheel of time has reinvented the continents by   
means of ten mammoth bridges. Look at the   
Mediterranean, and compare the charts of the   
nineteenth century with those of our day. Its   
islands are affiliated to Europe. Note the   
atrophy suffered by the Black, Caspian, and   
Adriatic Seas, and the corresponding hypertrophy undergone by the land. Seas are   
dwarfed into narrow friths, and the whole   
land is irrigated by artificial rivers. Lakes   
are obliterated, and islands wedded to the   
mainland." 

Wc now hurry on by one of the Africo-   
European bridges to Africa. Africa! What   
libraries of meaning slumber in this word!   
Formerly an unknown and untrodden region,   
abounding in deserted deserts, every acre of its   
surface now yields its increase. Famed among   
the famous are the pioneers who pierced its   
arcana. Above that of conquerors, their glory   
equals that of a Columbus. Bruce, Speke, Grant,   
Baker, and Livingstone are names which even   
the ravenous tooth of Time shall not tear. Dissecting the geographical viscera of this mighty continent, their researches foretold how the   
hitherto unknown heart of Africa would pulsate   
with the full vigour of commercial life, and   
that its aorta, the Nile, would teem with   
navigation. 

Having reached Cairo, we cast an eye   
at those poor pigmy attempts at massiveness, the   
Pyramids. How insulting to the pride of the   
ancients that our age, by means of its monstrous   
machines, could take them down and re-erect   
them in half-an-hour ! We next hie to Thebes.   
When here could our memories fail to bum   
with remembrances of the ancient city with its   
hundred gates, or could our hearts fail to swell when we thought how, at the sound of a second Amphion’s lyre, Thebes redivivus arose to   
eclipse its predecessor, and to take its place   
as one of the gems of the geography of the   
millennium ? 

Going on by Abyssinia, we behold the   
beautiful country of Sahara. Bright waxed   
eloquent as he told us how an Eden had been   
made of the desert, and how the prophecy   
had been fulfilled, that “it would rejoice and   
blossom as the rose." In its metropolis we   
spent the night, and next morning we set out   
for the Cape of Good Hope, paying a visit to   
the peninsula of Madagascar in passing. We   
afterwards travel by the Pacific Submarine   
Railway to the South Sea Continent. Lastly,   
we hurry on to the South Pole, where we stop   
for the night to admire its city and its observatory, with its golden circle, whose centre   
forms the exact axis of the earth. 

While here, our Mentor, in speaking of   
travelling, said, “ Up to the nineteenth century   
it was a penance plus peril. There were   
collisions by land and shipwrecks by sea. To   
cross oceans, one was pent up in an aggregation   
of planks sometimes for months without ever seeing land, and burdened with the horrors of exposure, scanty victuals, sometimes starvation,   
and often disease. Railways then, though   
powerful agents according to the small ideas   
of the times, were merely embryonic. In the   
great march of railway reform, fiill many a   
difficulty was bridged ere the culmination of   
the imderground system, by which the earth   
has been completely honeycombed and mutila-   
tion and waste of its surface avoided." 

, Our teacher then dilated on the malmanagement of the ancient railway. ^^ Transit   
systems, " said he, ^ ^ then belonged to hundreds of   
different and indifferent hostile companies, whose   
aim was usury, and whose enterprises were   
always speculations and often peculations. High   
fares, yet small dividends, discordant arrangements, an endless array of officials, and yet an endless succession of shameful accidents, were   
the attributes of this impolitic policy. The first   
step in the creation of order from this chaos   
was the growth of the rudimentary schemes of   
these stockbrokers into great national railways, and the last step was the consummation of the present cosmopolitan system   
— a system which presents in its simplicity a miglity clockwork. The movements of   
trains, like those of stars, are the embodiment of harmony and synchronism. The   
pulsations of the great arteries of trade in   
the world's anatomy beat with faultless normality.”

" But roads as well as railroads," he went on   
to say, " were pilferers of the soil in those   
days, to keep up which there was an unpalatable impost, which, like the generality of   
imposts, saw the lion's share of what was   
collected going to the private pocket of the   
collector. Totally reversed is the modem   
plan. Nature's carpet, cultivated in a peculiar   
way, is our highway. Nature alone is our road-   
repairer, so that the dark ages of tolls, road   
trustees, stone breakers, causeway cleaners,   
and horse-shoes are ended. 

We now take the wings of the morning to   
fly to the uttermost parts of the seas. Descending to the South Pole subterranean station, along with 4,000 passengers, we enter an itinerating   
town of carriages, and, regaled by music, are   
soon bowled along at the rate of 1,000 kilometres   
per hour below the Pacific Ocean. In a few   
hours we stop, when we evacuate the wheeled buildings, ascend to the earth's cnist, and find ourselves in Iceland — an ice-land no longer.   
Having surveyed its sights, we embark with   
1,000 miscellaneous passengers in a ship towed   
by fifty whales. After various excursions about   
the Arctic Regions, we land at the North Pole   
city. The journey hither seeming so simple,   
I wondered how men had lived and died for   
7,000 years without viewing the world's pivots.   
A panorama of historical pictures rolled before   
my mind's eye when I remembered how   
Franklin and many others, in their endeavors to reach them, only reached martyrdom.   
How malignant were the elements in those   
days, and against them how weak was man's   
defence! How different from the present,   
when caloric works have smothered the rage   
of Boreas, and when, clad in caloric-proof   
dress, man can brave a temperature that   
would melt metals or freeze alcohol with as   
much ease as though he only experienced   
summer heat ! 

Next day we reconnoitered the cities of   
Greenland and inspected those great caloric   
depots by which a mild climate is produced in   
the frigid zone, and by which artificial sun-light is produced during the darkness which broods here half the year. During the two days we   
spent here we had submarine excursions on   
whale - back or in diving - bell boats driven   
by walruses, — in the course of which we in-   
spected the rich bed of the Arctic ocean.   
Visiting thereafter Hudson's Bay Territory,   
our cicerone, by making us contrast antiquarian with modern maps, showed us the   
wondrous change man had made on the geo-   
graphy of this district. 

Having sailed on by the North- West Passage,   
we landed on the west of North America and   
spent the evening with one of the many divisions of the mountain iconoclastic army. The following day we witnessed soine triumphs of   
modem agriculture. Boundless prairies, where only grass grew and buffaloes lived, we saw teeming with the richest of Ceres' spoils. Sail-   
ing on by the Mississippi to the St. Lawrence   
in a vessel towed by salmon, we pay our tribute   
to the genius which had married these noble   
rivers. Reaching the Canadian lakes, we glance   
over the mighty topographical revolutions here,   
and then cruise along one of the many artificial   
rivers which join the Atlantic to the Pacific. 

The following day we are in the other hemisphere. By one of the sub- Atlantic railways we travel to Amsterdam. Our forces thereupon   
donned their aeronautic equipments and flew   
in a covey to the field of Waterloo.   
Thence we hied to Rotterdam, and, by way of   
variation, we rode up the Rhine on the backs of   
porpoises. Having arrived at Strasbourg, and   
having contemplated its ancient cathedral, —   
now a dwarf among modem   
buildings,— we re-arm ourselves with wings and   
fly to the shambles of the mighty slaughter of   
1870 and 1871. Forbach, Wissenburg, Metz, Sedan, Orleans, and Paris, where   
Moloch had so triumphantly celebrated some of   
his great gala days, are successively visited; our   
Mentor showing us as we proceed the course of   
the armies that heedlessly as needlessly sacri-   
ficed their thousands at the altar of ambitious   
kingcraft. ^^ Alas," he moralized, ^^battle-fields   
were the playgrounds of kings, but the purgatories of the people. War, where is the   
measure whereby we may compute thy crimes   
and vexations? The sight of thy enormities   
might curdle the blood in the very chambers of   
the heart. The spectacle of thy maddening evils miglit convert a Democritus into a   
Heraclitus." 

In Paris we view these icons of France —   
Notre Dame and the Louvre. There they stand, dark and grim hovels, while all around is glitter and magnificence. Yet it was well to spare   
these piles. Representing mediaeval architec-   
ture, they stand as a landmark to show the   
immeasurable advance of art. They are the monuments of the   
artistic pauperism of those ages of which they   
were once the pride. 

Next day we proceed to Switzerland, where   
we spend a few hours in examining the operations   
at present in progress for the removal of the   
mountain chains. “What mighty gaps, great chasms, stupendous precipices, and horrible devastation the work has caused and is causing !”  
was our ejaculation over the wondrous scene. 

The following day we review in their chronological rotation the scenes embalmed in the history of the world's boyhood. Among other   
cities, we scrutinize with the vigilance of an   
Argus modern Troy, famed for its Hectors   
and Priams in science. 

After wandering the many years' journeys   
of Aeneas, in a few minutes we find ourselves   
in Rome. It was the passionate wish of St.   
Augustine to have seen the Eternal City in its   
imperial glory. How much more intense would   
have been his longings to see it now, when its   
so-called Augustan age has been so completely   
out-Augustaned ! 

Taking the track of Scipio, we are soon in   
Carthage. The Hannibals,Hannos, and Hamil-   
cars of war produced the downfall of the ancient   
city. But the Hannibals and Hannos   
of science have not only effected its regenera-   
tion, but invested it with perennial distinction.   
'^ Carthage has fallen," was the sigh of the   
ancients. ^^ Carthage has risen," is the exulta-   
tion of the moderns. Persepolis, Ecbatana,   
Pompeii, Alexandria, and other cities are like-   
wise embraced in our tour, — cities which,   
though desolations in the Middle Ages, have,,   
phoenix-like, risen from ashes. 

The following day the intricacies and advantages of the pneumatic railways were explained. Cobden Bright showed that by this system limited traffic was compensated by imparalleled speed, and that man, through its agency,   
actually possessed the hat of Fortunatus, which   
enabled him to be transferred almost instantly   
whithersoever he desired. 

Siberia, this erewhile sterile, but now lovely,   
land, is next invaded by our sight-seeing band.   
Its prolific plains, pregnant with the burdens   
of agriculture, breathe into the soul the   
fi:agrance of joy. Little did I think as I,   
along with my friends, traversed this luxuriant   
garden that I would in future be its President.   
We next change our camp to China and Japan,   
where we remain two days. At Hong-Kong we   
bid farewell to this region, descend to the   
station, and are forthwith spun round the curve   
of the Pacific by the China to Peru Railway   
into South America. Arrived here, we ascend   
its mountains, inspect its volcanoes, sail down   
or up its great rivers, and review the wondrous   
machinery of its commerce. What changes   
time has wrought on this once-stagnant land !   
Its volcanoes are caloric depots, its pampas are   
paradises, and its lands Elysia. The noble   
Amazon is now joined in geographic wedlock to the Orinoco, the Rio Grande, the Parana, the Rio de la Plata, and its   
other neighbouring rivers. 

In subsequently crossing the Straits of   
Mexico by one of the Panama Bridges, our   
pitying admiration shed a tear for those men   
who unsuccessfully strove to open this door to   
two oceans — this clasp binding two continents   
— this Suez of the Western Hemisphere. Could   
sympathy fail to remember those noble Scotchmen, greater than their countrymen who fell at Bannockburn, who here became martyrs   
to the Darien scheme, and whose bones were   
left to bleach unavenged on the belt of land   
they had hoped to cut. 

This ended our excursion, and we there-   
fore entered the underground railway here,   
and in a few hours more were in the Lyceum. 

Thus, after making the tour of the world, we   
returned to our head-quarters, our sympathies   
enlarged, and our minds enriched. In a few   
days we had travelled more than a man in the   
nineteenth century could have done in a lifetime. We had seen all the world's sights, had skipped round and round its circuit as if it had   
been but a few kilometres in diameter, and had stowed an infinity of valuable information into the bunkers of our memory. 

My narration now arrives at the date   
November 19, 2794. Then was the enterprise   
commenced of having a complete control over   
the temperature of all climes, and of making   
the earth's caloric subservient to universal use   
in the mechanical world. In the mighty army of   
savants who superintended the scheme, I served   
in the detachment which, under Fahrenheit   
Centigrade, had allotted to it the onerous, and   
therefore honourable, task of investigating the   
economy of volcanoes. The heroic nature of   
our labours, and the victorious sway of our   
researches, being already recorded in the   
register of history, require only a summary   
reference. On March 22 in the following   
year, our centurion brigade, armed with fire-   
proof habiliments, entered the door of the   
fabled workshop of Vulcan — the umbilicus of   
the world, the crater of Mount Etna. Perform-   
ing the great feat of Empedocles, how different   
was the result ! The magnificent boldness   
of our explorations, mile after mile, through the   
molten regions, our wondrous adventures, our   
.still more wondrous discoveries in this fiery country, and, at last, our re-appearance uponthe earth's crust at the crater of Mount Vesu-^   
vius, at the end of our subterranean sojoumings,   
are as pregnant with instruction as romance.   
The feat, unparalleled in history, did not incur   
one iota of danger. Our amazing scientific   
inventions enabled us to swim with ease through   
the white-hot region. By means of these and   
similar bold explorations into the fiery entrails  
of mother earth, our army stormed the heights  
of their purposes. Caloric emporia were established in every latitude, thermal springs and geysers introduced into every town, and an   
unlimited supply of caloric force supplied, not   
only to every factory but to every household.   
In my later labours upon this distinguished   
phalanx of virtuosi I invented the means to-   
form an artificial lake of fire near the thermal   
works of Greenland, by pumping up caloric   
from the earth's yelk. I was promoted for   
my invention, and appointed to supervise my   
scheme. The fiery lake was accordingly formed   
under my directions. The magnificence, joined.   
to the utility of the undertaking, brought upon me an unexpected share of public notice. Finished, millions flocked to the artificial   
Gehenna. A lake of fire had hitherto been   
supposed peculiar to Hell alone. Here, however, was one of immense magnitude, sur-   
rounded by an embankment resplendent with   
gems, and skirted with fountains and cataracts,   
vomiting forth white-hot molten liquid. The-   
scene formed the brightest page in the history   
of illuminations. Pyrotechny, though an art,   
which dated from the moment in which Adam   
made his first fire, triumphed here over all its  
past triumphs. 

But the caloric reformation achieved still   
grander conquests. As politics had seen the   
rugged inequalities of society smoothed and   
a universal community of goods and virtue   
established, art now so adjusted the disparities in climate as to introduce a uniform temperature throughout the world. The former crude   
measures of tugging icebergs to the Equator   
were rendered obsolete. Thermal depots were   
so numerously established that ice was no   
longer produced by nature, but only by art.   
The Arctic and Antarctic regions were heated   
by the overplus of warmth in the Tropics, so that 2800 saw the last winter in history.   
Then, for the last time, the dying year was   
swathed in a winding-sheet of snow, — then   
the icy monarch unloosed his frigid grasp of   
the two Poles for ever. The whole world was   
now isothermal ; Greenland was rendered an   
Italy, Iceland an Elysium, and the Frigid and   
Torrid zones were now only frigid and torrid   
in name.


	9. On the science of the ancients

Two years more had been swallowed up by   
the maw of Time, when I published the marrow   
of my meditations on science and literature.   
Abounding with the precipitate reasoning and   
plethoric periods so characteristic of a young,   
fiery, undisciplined pen, the book's faults are   
such as I need not excuse or palliate. 

This is the book's prologue : — 

“” Science, in its infancy, had to encounter   
the storms of sophistry and the winters of   
indifference. Its beginnings were a few seeds   
of truth, hidden amid the chaff of fallacy. The   
cruel curb of ignorance stifled its growth, until, .   
like infantile Hercules, it strangled the serpents  
of error and amazed the world by its victories.   
Making inroads into every hole and comer   
of Nature, it showed that the universe was   
an organization of Divine wonders, embracing   
millions of harmonizing phenomena, all in time   
with God's eternal and irrevocable purpose.   
Yet philosophy had bastards in its apprentice who affected to draw logic from absurdity, and truth from sophistry. They   
essayed to make Science spit in the face of its   
twin-sister Religion, though truth told so boldly   
how science was the religion of Grod's physical   
laws, and religion the science of God's moral   
laws, and that both were chords in the great harp of theology, striking diflferent yet concordant sounds." 

Agriculture, as the first-bom of the sciences,   
I first review. Narrating its imperfections   
before Ceres supplied sufficient stores for every   
stomach, I lamented the ignorance of the times   
in suffering from drought when three-fourths   
of the World's surface was covered with water;   
from want of sim, simply because it was veiled   
by clouds ; and in enduring famines, when   
such immense territories of the world, culti-   
vatable, were uncultivated. By the elevation   
vof Adam's profession to the modem standard,   
I showed how billions of plants sprang up   
where none grew before, and com flourished   
"where formerly were weeds.


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